more gaslightling by the vile scottish tories, its was their sh ite brexit that caused all the issues for the fishermen- so many voted no because of all their fearmongering (now that IS a sector that would likely have voted differently had they seen the future in crystal ball a few years ago)
SNP's secret legal advice on joining the EU at centre of yet another privacy battle Ministers have been trying to block publication of the papers since 2019, although the sections that HAVE been released show it could take a separate Scotland 20 YEARS to join the bloc
more gaslightling by the vile scottish tories, its was their sh ite brexit that caused all the issues for the fishermen- so many voted no because of all their fearmongering (now that IS a sector that would likely have voted differently had they seen the future in crystal ball a few years ago)
SNP's secret legal advice on joining the EU at centre of yet another privacy battle Ministers have been trying to block publication of the papers since 2019, although the sections that HAVE been released show it could take a separate Scotland 20 YEARS to join the bloc
more gaslightling by the vile scottish tories, its was their sh ite brexit that caused all the issues for the fishermen- so many voted no because of all their fearmongering (now that IS a sector that would likely have voted differently had they seen the future in crystal ball a few years ago)
SNP's secret legal advice on joining the EU at centre of yet another privacy battle Ministers have been trying to block publication of the papers since 2019, although the sections that HAVE been released show it could take a separate Scotland 20 YEARS to join the bloc
Why do you keep posting articles in very right wing conservative euro sceptic rags......?
if you are looking for a balanced point of view its the last place to go
I dont necessarily agree with all the articles I post. I often post articles that I think will be debated. At other times I will post a number of articles that support opposing views. I think the Penny Mordaunt article has an extreme headline. I would also agree 100% with you, and @Essexphil, on the "SNP humiliation" article, where the content didnt back up the title in any shape or form.
I do think that this article is different, and poses some very relevant questions of the SNP, and the FOI Act. For instance if their legal advice really shows that it would take 20 years to re-join the EU, then they should share this knowledge with the general public. They should be open and honest. Although if this were the case, I am certain that this would severely affect their chances of getting a majority in a future referendum. If it took an additional 5 years to get a referendum, it would make independence almost irrelevant to a section of pro EU voters. The FOI Act was surely intended to inform the general public, not to allow important information to be withheld.
Some critics have argued the comparison with Montenegro shows that a separate Scotland would also require up to 19 years from application to accession.
However, Mr Reid's privacy battle was not done yet; he went back to the SIO to ask for the redactions to be removed and the final ruling on his appeal has yet to be published.
In one email, he states: "Having worked in FOI for a number of years I have to say this is by far the worst handling of a case I have ever come across and I am sure that this will be reflected in the Commissioner's report on the matter. Indeed I am convinced there has been a concerted effort on your behalf to ensure this information never sees the light of day."
The saga has been covered by the The Populist's Playbook website, run by unionist blogger Bingo Demagogue. He told the Scottish Express: "After Brexit the SNP commissioned a civil service taxpayer funded feasibility study into if, when and how an independent Scotland could join the EU.
"Under FOI first they denied it existed, then they delayed releasing any of it, then when they released it they redacted all the timelines so we still don't know what it said - however a footnote left in the document suggests it thinks we would be like Montenegro (who don't have their own currency and will be stuck outside the EU two decades after gaining independence)."
On Twitter, Mr Reid is still trying after three years to get answers from various SNP politicians about the Scottish Government's advice.
Earlier this week, former MSP Christian Allard declared that Scotland would go "straight into the EU, just like that! From day one we can be in the single market, just like Northern Ireland is."
Ursula, the sea witch is the very reason I want fk all to do with the EU. Smug, self serving and pompous, she doesn't give a toss about Britain, only how the EU can benefit from allowing us back.
Ursula, the sea witch is the very reason I want fk all to do with the EU. Smug, self serving and pompous, she doesn't give a toss about Britain, only how the EU can benefit from allowing us back.
Also if Yahoo news reports it it must be true.
There was little doubt who came ahead in the spat between Ursula von der Leyen, the president of the European Commission, and Rishi Sunak last week over Britain rejoining the EU. She began her salvo acknowledging that the EU had “goofed up” in losing Britain, but that it would fall to her children’s generation “to fix it”. The “direction of travel was clear”. Britain one day would rejoin.
The substance behind No 10’s inevitable refutation was so threadbare that it bordered on the comic. But then there is no better defence to hand. The prime minister, intoned his spokesman, did not think Brexit was in danger, trying to reinforce the point by declaring: “It’s through our Brexit freedoms that we are, right now, considering how to further strengthen our migration system. It is through our Brexit freedoms we are ensuring patients in the UK can get access to medicines faster, that there is improved animal welfare. That is very much what we are focused on.”
Is that it? Apart from the fact the claims are at best half-truths, at worst palpable falsehoods, as a muster of Brexit “freedoms” they fall devastatingly short of the promises made during the referendum campaign. Recall the economic and trade boom, a reinvigorated NHS, cheap food, controlled immigration and a reborn “global” Britain strutting the world. It’s all ashes – and had today’s realities been known in 2016, we would still be EU members.
Ursula, the sea witch is the very reason I want fk all to do with the EU. Smug, self serving and pompous, she doesn't give a toss about Britain, only how the EU can benefit from allowing us back.
Also if Yahoo news reports it it must be true.
Will Hutton Sun, 3 December 2023 at 7:30 am GMT·6-min read
Ursula, the sea witch is the very reason I want fk all to do with the EU. Smug, self serving and pompous, she doesn't give a toss about Britain, only how the EU can benefit from allowing us back.
Also if Yahoo news reports it it must be true.
The logic of geography, economics and one-sided trade deals is inexorable
Strengthening our migration system? Freedom of movement in the EU certainly meant that EU nationals could work here freely, as the British could reciprocally work in the EU, but they tended to be young and single. The Poles, Czechs and Romanians kept their home ties warm by going back frequently as it was so geographically easy, and consequently tended not to bring dependants with them. When they had achieved what they wanted, they returned home where per capita incomes were fast catching up with Britain’s. Now immigrants come from other continents to where frequent return is impractical, and so are forced to settle here more permanently, bringing their families with them. Nor are there reciprocal rights for Brits to work in their countries. And because their homelands tend to be poorer, they are less likely to return. Yes, we are considering strengthening the immigration rules, but only because, outside the EU, control of immigration is proving very much harder – families come rather than individuals.
Animal welfare? More than two years on, the much-trumpeted action plan for animal welfare is floundering, with little enacted. Meanwhile, it is the EU that has consistently taken animal welfare seriously.
Faster access to medicines? The claim is risible. If this is a reference to strengthening the early access to medicines scheme – a good measure – note that it was launched in 2014 when we were inside the EU. Faster access to medicines is not a Brexit “freedom”.
As von der Leyen says, the direction of travel is away from this barren Brexit – thus everything from Britain re-entering the Horizon Europe research programme to a fifth postponement of inspecting food and plant imports from the EU. The logic of geography, economics and the availability of only one-sided trade deals, especially with the US and China, is inexorable. The EU will remain Britain’s largest trading partner: it sets the rules and we either abide by them or accept reduced trade with all the consequences. A former top Treasury official tells me that his advice to Rachel Reeves, a growth-focused would-be chancellor, would be unambiguous: rejoin the single market and the customs union. In his scathingly brilliant book How They Broke Britain, the LBC presenter James O’Brien describes how the rightwing, Europhobic ecosystem of media, thinktanks and Tory politicians that has developed over the past 40 years prohibits an honest public conversation. Political leadership cowers in its ever-threatening shadow, so that to keep it calm Sunak has to make claims about Brexit “freedoms” that he must know are specious, while Keir Starmer, no less aware of the economic and geopolitical realities, has to say there is no case to rejoin the single market and customs union. On Europe, as with so many issues – think the case for proper levels of taxation or even delaying lockdown by three weeks – policy is developed and conducted within this rightwing paradigm of hysteria.
Tony Blair left office in 2007 accusing the UK media of hunting “like a feral beast tearing people and reputations apart”. Unless Starmer and team act to reduce its power and capacity for untruth, they can expect new heights of feral **** inhibiting their every act in government – especially on Europe. Winning a general election will represent one advance, but unless Labour changes the ground rules via some combination of media ownership requirements, regulatory standards and strengthening public service broadcasting, the right’s blocking power will remain intense.
Rejoining would mean faster growth in living standards, better security and paradoxically lower immigration
Yet for all that, Labour is promising measures that if backed by an electoral mandate would accelerate the step-by-step return process begun by Sunak. Only last Friday, the shadow foreign secretary, David Lammy, said that a defence and security pact with the EU was a priority. Starmer has talked of improving vital trading relationships – there will be no divergence on key standards – and aims for a veterinary agreement and mutual recognition of professional qualifications. There is potentially more: collaboration on energy security, integrating Britain and the EU’s carbon trading arrangements and even joining the Pan-Euro-Mediterranean (PEM) convention as a halfway house to customs union and single market membership. A renegotiated trade and cooperation agreement in 2026 could imply a much more fully fledged EU-UK partnership. All this is likely, even certain, with a Labour victory.
But rejoining? Pro-EU sentiment is certainly hardening. The European movement is the largest it has ever been. In Greater London, there is strong support, especially among the young. Labour party members are overwhelmingly in favour. Rejoining would mean faster growth in living standards, better security and paradoxically lower immigration – a story that works well in both “red wall” seats and urban Britain. It would divide the right into Faragists and realists – thus marginalising it.
A pragmatic Labour party would become the natural party of government. Britain won’t rejoin in the next parliament, but if the EU can hold together and prosper, rejoining must be a good bet in the parliament after that. Building Europe was never going to be easy. In 2040, we may look back and see Brexit as part of the process. Neither Britain, nor any member state, would want to repeat it.
Ursula, the sea witch is the very reason I want fk all to do with the EU. Smug, self serving and pompous, she doesn't give a toss about Britain, only how the EU can benefit from allowing us back.
Also if Yahoo news reports it it must be true.
The logic of geography, economics and one-sided trade deals is inexorable
Strengthening our migration system? Freedom of movement in the EU certainly meant that EU nationals could work here freely, as the British could reciprocally work in the EU, but they tended to be young and single. The Poles, Czechs and Romanians kept their home ties warm by going back frequently as it was so geographically easy, and consequently tended not to bring dependants with them. When they had achieved what they wanted, they returned home where per capita incomes were fast catching up with Britain’s. Now immigrants come from other continents to where frequent return is impractical, and so are forced to settle here more permanently, bringing their families with them. Nor are there reciprocal rights for Brits to work in their countries. And because their homelands tend to be poorer, they are less likely to return. Yes, we are considering strengthening the immigration rules, but only because, outside the EU, control of immigration is proving very much harder – families come rather than individuals.
Animal welfare? More than two years on, the much-trumpeted action plan for animal welfare is floundering, with little enacted. Meanwhile, it is the EU that has consistently taken animal welfare seriously.
Faster access to medicines? The claim is risible. If this is a reference to strengthening the early access to medicines scheme – a good measure – note that it was launched in 2014 when we were inside the EU. Faster access to medicines is not a Brexit “freedom”.
As von der Leyen says, the direction of travel is away from this barren Brexit – thus everything from Britain re-entering the Horizon Europe research programme to a fifth postponement of inspecting food and plant imports from the EU. The logic of geography, economics and the availability of only one-sided trade deals, especially with the US and China, is inexorable. The EU will remain Britain’s largest trading partner: it sets the rules and we either abide by them or accept reduced trade with all the consequences. A former top Treasury official tells me that his advice to Rachel Reeves, a growth-focused would-be chancellor, would be unambiguous: rejoin the single market and the customs union. In his scathingly brilliant book How They Broke Britain, the LBC presenter James O’Brien describes how the rightwing, Europhobic ecosystem of media, thinktanks and Tory politicians that has developed over the past 40 years prohibits an honest public conversation. Political leadership cowers in its ever-threatening shadow, so that to keep it calm Sunak has to make claims about Brexit “freedoms” that he must know are specious, while Keir Starmer, no less aware of the economic and geopolitical realities, has to say there is no case to rejoin the single market and customs union. On Europe, as with so many issues – think the case for proper levels of taxation or even delaying lockdown by three weeks – policy is developed and conducted within this rightwing paradigm of hysteria.
Tony Blair left office in 2007 accusing the UK media of hunting “like a feral beast tearing people and reputations apart”. Unless Starmer and team act to reduce its power and capacity for untruth, they can expect new heights of feral **** inhibiting their every act in government – especially on Europe. Winning a general election will represent one advance, but unless Labour changes the ground rules via some combination of media ownership requirements, regulatory standards and strengthening public service broadcasting, the right’s blocking power will remain intense.
Rejoining would mean faster growth in living standards, better security and paradoxically lower immigration
Yet for all that, Labour is promising measures that if backed by an electoral mandate would accelerate the step-by-step return process begun by Sunak. Only last Friday, the shadow foreign secretary, David Lammy, said that a defence and security pact with the EU was a priority. Starmer has talked of improving vital trading relationships – there will be no divergence on key standards – and aims for a veterinary agreement and mutual recognition of professional qualifications. There is potentially more: collaboration on energy security, integrating Britain and the EU’s carbon trading arrangements and even joining the Pan-Euro-Mediterranean (PEM) convention as a halfway house to customs union and single market membership. A renegotiated trade and cooperation agreement in 2026 could imply a much more fully fledged EU-UK partnership. All this is likely, even certain, with a Labour victory.
But rejoining? Pro-EU sentiment is certainly hardening. The European movement is the largest it has ever been. In Greater London, there is strong support, especially among the young. Labour party members are overwhelmingly in favour. Rejoining would mean faster growth in living standards, better security and paradoxically lower immigration – a story that works well in both “red wall” seats and urban Britain. It would divide the right into Faragists and realists – thus marginalising it.
A pragmatic Labour party would become the natural party of government. Britain won’t rejoin in the next parliament, but if the EU can hold together and prosper, rejoining must be a good bet in the parliament after that. Building Europe was never going to be easy. In 2040, we may look back and see Brexit as part of the process. Neither Britain, nor any member state, would want to repeat it.
Yeah coz it's all about London isn't it ? The harsh facts of life in the UK are that what people living in London or the South East want or would like has absolutely sod all to do with the rest. I have no doubt that the EU was a great benefit to the South in general but here in the wastelands of North of Oxford all we have is unemployment or slave employment at best, an epidemic of homelessness, hopelessness and inequity and the great indifference of those for whom the luvverlie Europhile dream must be returned at any cost.
Ursula, the sea witch is the very reason I want fk all to do with the EU. Smug, self serving and pompous, she doesn't give a toss about Britain, only how the EU can benefit from allowing us back.
Also if Yahoo news reports it it must be true.
The logic of geography, economics and one-sided trade deals is inexorable
Strengthening our migration system? Freedom of movement in the EU certainly meant that EU nationals could work here freely, as the British could reciprocally work in the EU, but they tended to be young and single. The Poles, Czechs and Romanians kept their home ties warm by going back frequently as it was so geographically easy, and consequently tended not to bring dependants with them. When they had achieved what they wanted, they returned home where per capita incomes were fast catching up with Britain’s. Now immigrants come from other continents to where frequent return is impractical, and so are forced to settle here more permanently, bringing their families with them. Nor are there reciprocal rights for Brits to work in their countries. And because their homelands tend to be poorer, they are less likely to return. Yes, we are considering strengthening the immigration rules, but only because, outside the EU, control of immigration is proving very much harder – families come rather than individuals.
Animal welfare? More than two years on, the much-trumpeted action plan for animal welfare is floundering, with little enacted. Meanwhile, it is the EU that has consistently taken animal welfare seriously.
Faster access to medicines? The claim is risible. If this is a reference to strengthening the early access to medicines scheme – a good measure – note that it was launched in 2014 when we were inside the EU. Faster access to medicines is not a Brexit “freedom”.
As von der Leyen says, the direction of travel is away from this barren Brexit – thus everything from Britain re-entering the Horizon Europe research programme to a fifth postponement of inspecting food and plant imports from the EU. The logic of geography, economics and the availability of only one-sided trade deals, especially with the US and China, is inexorable. The EU will remain Britain’s largest trading partner: it sets the rules and we either abide by them or accept reduced trade with all the consequences. A former top Treasury official tells me that his advice to Rachel Reeves, a growth-focused would-be chancellor, would be unambiguous: rejoin the single market and the customs union. In his scathingly brilliant book How They Broke Britain, the LBC presenter James O’Brien describes how the rightwing, Europhobic ecosystem of media, thinktanks and Tory politicians that has developed over the past 40 years prohibits an honest public conversation. Political leadership cowers in its ever-threatening shadow, so that to keep it calm Sunak has to make claims about Brexit “freedoms” that he must know are specious, while Keir Starmer, no less aware of the economic and geopolitical realities, has to say there is no case to rejoin the single market and customs union. On Europe, as with so many issues – think the case for proper levels of taxation or even delaying lockdown by three weeks – policy is developed and conducted within this rightwing paradigm of hysteria.
Tony Blair left office in 2007 accusing the UK media of hunting “like a feral beast tearing people and reputations apart”. Unless Starmer and team act to reduce its power and capacity for untruth, they can expect new heights of feral **** inhibiting their every act in government – especially on Europe. Winning a general election will represent one advance, but unless Labour changes the ground rules via some combination of media ownership requirements, regulatory standards and strengthening public service broadcasting, the right’s blocking power will remain intense.
Rejoining would mean faster growth in living standards, better security and paradoxically lower immigration
Yet for all that, Labour is promising measures that if backed by an electoral mandate would accelerate the step-by-step return process begun by Sunak. Only last Friday, the shadow foreign secretary, David Lammy, said that a defence and security pact with the EU was a priority. Starmer has talked of improving vital trading relationships – there will be no divergence on key standards – and aims for a veterinary agreement and mutual recognition of professional qualifications. There is potentially more: collaboration on energy security, integrating Britain and the EU’s carbon trading arrangements and even joining the Pan-Euro-Mediterranean (PEM) convention as a halfway house to customs union and single market membership. A renegotiated trade and cooperation agreement in 2026 could imply a much more fully fledged EU-UK partnership. All this is likely, even certain, with a Labour victory.
But rejoining? Pro-EU sentiment is certainly hardening. The European movement is the largest it has ever been. In Greater London, there is strong support, especially among the young. Labour party members are overwhelmingly in favour. Rejoining would mean faster growth in living standards, better security and paradoxically lower immigration – a story that works well in both “red wall” seats and urban Britain. It would divide the right into Faragists and realists – thus marginalising it.
A pragmatic Labour party would become the natural party of government. Britain won’t rejoin in the next parliament, but if the EU can hold together and prosper, rejoining must be a good bet in the parliament after that. Building Europe was never going to be easy. In 2040, we may look back and see Brexit as part of the process. Neither Britain, nor any member state, would want to repeat it.
Yeah coz it's all about London isn't it ? The harsh facts of life in the UK are that what people living in London or the South East want or would like has absolutely sod all to do with the rest. I have no doubt that the EU was a great benefit to the South in general but here in the wastelands of North of Oxford all we have is unemployment or slave employment at best, an epidemic of homelessness, hopelessness and inequity and the great indifference of those for whom the luvverlie Europhile dream must be returned at any cost.
I think that sort of argument is the reason behind the referendum result. Many people were confused about what responsibilities they should place at the door of the EU. Completely forgetting that we were, and still are an independent country. The UK government runs our country, not the EU. Leaving the EU has had an adverse effect on our economy. This affects everyone. Although some areas have been hit harder than others. We cant blame the EU, for our taxes, the NHS, energy prices, inflation, interest rates, the fact that Brits can no longer retire to, or work in Europe, the fact that we cant seem to control our borders, the Irish border, homelessness, etc, etc, etc.
Ursula, the sea witch is the very reason I want fk all to do with the EU. Smug, self serving and pompous, she doesn't give a toss about Britain, only how the EU can benefit from allowing us back.
Also if Yahoo news reports it it must be true.
The logic of geography, economics and one-sided trade deals is inexorable
Strengthening our migration system? Freedom of movement in the EU certainly meant that EU nationals could work here freely, as the British could reciprocally work in the EU, but they tended to be young and single. The Poles, Czechs and Romanians kept their home ties warm by going back frequently as it was so geographically easy, and consequently tended not to bring dependants with them. When they had achieved what they wanted, they returned home where per capita incomes were fast catching up with Britain’s. Now immigrants come from other continents to where frequent return is impractical, and so are forced to settle here more permanently, bringing their families with them. Nor are there reciprocal rights for Brits to work in their countries. And because their homelands tend to be poorer, they are less likely to return. Yes, we are considering strengthening the immigration rules, but only because, outside the EU, control of immigration is proving very much harder – families come rather than individuals.
Animal welfare? More than two years on, the much-trumpeted action plan for animal welfare is floundering, with little enacted. Meanwhile, it is the EU that has consistently taken animal welfare seriously.
Faster access to medicines? The claim is risible. If this is a reference to strengthening the early access to medicines scheme – a good measure – note that it was launched in 2014 when we were inside the EU. Faster access to medicines is not a Brexit “freedom”.
As von der Leyen says, the direction of travel is away from this barren Brexit – thus everything from Britain re-entering the Horizon Europe research programme to a fifth postponement of inspecting food and plant imports from the EU. The logic of geography, economics and the availability of only one-sided trade deals, especially with the US and China, is inexorable. The EU will remain Britain’s largest trading partner: it sets the rules and we either abide by them or accept reduced trade with all the consequences. A former top Treasury official tells me that his advice to Rachel Reeves, a growth-focused would-be chancellor, would be unambiguous: rejoin the single market and the customs union. In his scathingly brilliant book How They Broke Britain, the LBC presenter James O’Brien describes how the rightwing, Europhobic ecosystem of media, thinktanks and Tory politicians that has developed over the past 40 years prohibits an honest public conversation. Political leadership cowers in its ever-threatening shadow, so that to keep it calm Sunak has to make claims about Brexit “freedoms” that he must know are specious, while Keir Starmer, no less aware of the economic and geopolitical realities, has to say there is no case to rejoin the single market and customs union. On Europe, as with so many issues – think the case for proper levels of taxation or even delaying lockdown by three weeks – policy is developed and conducted within this rightwing paradigm of hysteria.
Tony Blair left office in 2007 accusing the UK media of hunting “like a feral beast tearing people and reputations apart”. Unless Starmer and team act to reduce its power and capacity for untruth, they can expect new heights of feral **** inhibiting their every act in government – especially on Europe. Winning a general election will represent one advance, but unless Labour changes the ground rules via some combination of media ownership requirements, regulatory standards and strengthening public service broadcasting, the right’s blocking power will remain intense.
Rejoining would mean faster growth in living standards, better security and paradoxically lower immigration
Yet for all that, Labour is promising measures that if backed by an electoral mandate would accelerate the step-by-step return process begun by Sunak. Only last Friday, the shadow foreign secretary, David Lammy, said that a defence and security pact with the EU was a priority. Starmer has talked of improving vital trading relationships – there will be no divergence on key standards – and aims for a veterinary agreement and mutual recognition of professional qualifications. There is potentially more: collaboration on energy security, integrating Britain and the EU’s carbon trading arrangements and even joining the Pan-Euro-Mediterranean (PEM) convention as a halfway house to customs union and single market membership. A renegotiated trade and cooperation agreement in 2026 could imply a much more fully fledged EU-UK partnership. All this is likely, even certain, with a Labour victory.
But rejoining? Pro-EU sentiment is certainly hardening. The European movement is the largest it has ever been. In Greater London, there is strong support, especially among the young. Labour party members are overwhelmingly in favour. Rejoining would mean faster growth in living standards, better security and paradoxically lower immigration – a story that works well in both “red wall” seats and urban Britain. It would divide the right into Faragists and realists – thus marginalising it.
A pragmatic Labour party would become the natural party of government. Britain won’t rejoin in the next parliament, but if the EU can hold together and prosper, rejoining must be a good bet in the parliament after that. Building Europe was never going to be easy. In 2040, we may look back and see Brexit as part of the process. Neither Britain, nor any member state, would want to repeat it.
Yeah coz it's all about London isn't it ? The harsh facts of life in the UK are that what people living in London or the South East want or would like has absolutely sod all to do with the rest. I have no doubt that the EU was a great benefit to the South in general but here in the wastelands of North of Oxford all we have is unemployment or slave employment at best, an epidemic of homelessness, hopelessness and inequity and the great indifference of those for whom the luvverlie Europhile dream must be returned at any cost.
I think that some people voted to leave the EU, in the expectation that their lives would immediately improve as soon as we left. Obviously this didnt happen. Although there was no logical reason why this would happen. In many cases the opposite was true.
The British public now has the experience of life inside, and outside the EU. The fact that there is a growing majority in favour of re-joining, probably says all you need to know.
People should blame the Tories for their current predicament, not the EU. Has anything got better since we left? Plenty of things have got worse.
Ursula, the sea witch is the very reason I want fk all to do with the EU. Smug, self serving and pompous, she doesn't give a toss about Britain, only how the EU can benefit from allowing us back.
Also if Yahoo news reports it it must be true.
The logic of geography, economics and one-sided trade deals is inexorable
Strengthening our migration system? Freedom of movement in the EU certainly meant that EU nationals could work here freely, as the British could reciprocally work in the EU, but they tended to be young and single. The Poles, Czechs and Romanians kept their home ties warm by going back frequently as it was so geographically easy, and consequently tended not to bring dependants with them. When they had achieved what they wanted, they returned home where per capita incomes were fast catching up with Britain’s. Now immigrants come from other continents to where frequent return is impractical, and so are forced to settle here more permanently, bringing their families with them. Nor are there reciprocal rights for Brits to work in their countries. And because their homelands tend to be poorer, they are less likely to return. Yes, we are considering strengthening the immigration rules, but only because, outside the EU, control of immigration is proving very much harder – families come rather than individuals.
Animal welfare? More than two years on, the much-trumpeted action plan for animal welfare is floundering, with little enacted. Meanwhile, it is the EU that has consistently taken animal welfare seriously.
Faster access to medicines? The claim is risible. If this is a reference to strengthening the early access to medicines scheme – a good measure – note that it was launched in 2014 when we were inside the EU. Faster access to medicines is not a Brexit “freedom”.
As von der Leyen says, the direction of travel is away from this barren Brexit – thus everything from Britain re-entering the Horizon Europe research programme to a fifth postponement of inspecting food and plant imports from the EU. The logic of geography, economics and the availability of only one-sided trade deals, especially with the US and China, is inexorable. The EU will remain Britain’s largest trading partner: it sets the rules and we either abide by them or accept reduced trade with all the consequences. A former top Treasury official tells me that his advice to Rachel Reeves, a growth-focused would-be chancellor, would be unambiguous: rejoin the single market and the customs union. In his scathingly brilliant book How They Broke Britain, the LBC presenter James O’Brien describes how the rightwing, Europhobic ecosystem of media, thinktanks and Tory politicians that has developed over the past 40 years prohibits an honest public conversation. Political leadership cowers in its ever-threatening shadow, so that to keep it calm Sunak has to make claims about Brexit “freedoms” that he must know are specious, while Keir Starmer, no less aware of the economic and geopolitical realities, has to say there is no case to rejoin the single market and customs union. On Europe, as with so many issues – think the case for proper levels of taxation or even delaying lockdown by three weeks – policy is developed and conducted within this rightwing paradigm of hysteria.
Tony Blair left office in 2007 accusing the UK media of hunting “like a feral beast tearing people and reputations apart”. Unless Starmer and team act to reduce its power and capacity for untruth, they can expect new heights of feral **** inhibiting their every act in government – especially on Europe. Winning a general election will represent one advance, but unless Labour changes the ground rules via some combination of media ownership requirements, regulatory standards and strengthening public service broadcasting, the right’s blocking power will remain intense.
Rejoining would mean faster growth in living standards, better security and paradoxically lower immigration
Yet for all that, Labour is promising measures that if backed by an electoral mandate would accelerate the step-by-step return process begun by Sunak. Only last Friday, the shadow foreign secretary, David Lammy, said that a defence and security pact with the EU was a priority. Starmer has talked of improving vital trading relationships – there will be no divergence on key standards – and aims for a veterinary agreement and mutual recognition of professional qualifications. There is potentially more: collaboration on energy security, integrating Britain and the EU’s carbon trading arrangements and even joining the Pan-Euro-Mediterranean (PEM) convention as a halfway house to customs union and single market membership. A renegotiated trade and cooperation agreement in 2026 could imply a much more fully fledged EU-UK partnership. All this is likely, even certain, with a Labour victory.
But rejoining? Pro-EU sentiment is certainly hardening. The European movement is the largest it has ever been. In Greater London, there is strong support, especially among the young. Labour party members are overwhelmingly in favour. Rejoining would mean faster growth in living standards, better security and paradoxically lower immigration – a story that works well in both “red wall” seats and urban Britain. It would divide the right into Faragists and realists – thus marginalising it.
A pragmatic Labour party would become the natural party of government. Britain won’t rejoin in the next parliament, but if the EU can hold together and prosper, rejoining must be a good bet in the parliament after that. Building Europe was never going to be easy. In 2040, we may look back and see Brexit as part of the process. Neither Britain, nor any member state, would want to repeat it.
Yeah coz it's all about London isn't it ? The harsh facts of life in the UK are that what people living in London or the South East want or would like has absolutely sod all to do with the rest. I have no doubt that the EU was a great benefit to the South in general but here in the wastelands of North of Oxford all we have is unemployment or slave employment at best, an epidemic of homelessness, hopelessness and inequity and the great indifference of those for whom the luvverlie Europhile dream must be returned at any cost.
I think that sort of argument is the reason behind the referendum result. Many people were confused about what responsibilities they should place at the door of the EU. Completely forgetting that we were, and still are an independent country. The UK government runs our country, not the EU. Leaving the EU has had an adverse effect on our economy. This affects everyone. Although some areas have been hit harder than others. We cant blame the EU, for our taxes, the NHS, energy prices, inflation, interest rates, the fact that Brits can no longer retire to, or work in Europe, the fact that we cant seem to control our borders, the Irish border, homelessness, etc, etc, etc.
You may not think that we were governed by the faceless bureaucracy of Brussels but that was not the case.
Whether you want to admit it or not unelected foreigners had a massive say in how our country was run, maybe indirectly but the E.U held sway.
I don't blame the EU for our lack of border control, homelessness, the economy, etc. I blame the elected Government and that's the great thing about it. They can be changed at the next election.
However, I can't do jack about Ursula and her sycophants. Thankfully now, I don't have to.
Ursula, the sea witch is the very reason I want fk all to do with the EU. Smug, self serving and pompous, she doesn't give a toss about Britain, only how the EU can benefit from allowing us back.
Also if Yahoo news reports it it must be true.
The logic of geography, economics and one-sided trade deals is inexorable
Strengthening our migration system? Freedom of movement in the EU certainly meant that EU nationals could work here freely, as the British could reciprocally work in the EU, but they tended to be young and single. The Poles, Czechs and Romanians kept their home ties warm by going back frequently as it was so geographically easy, and consequently tended not to bring dependants with them. When they had achieved what they wanted, they returned home where per capita incomes were fast catching up with Britain’s. Now immigrants come from other continents to where frequent return is impractical, and so are forced to settle here more permanently, bringing their families with them. Nor are there reciprocal rights for Brits to work in their countries. And because their homelands tend to be poorer, they are less likely to return. Yes, we are considering strengthening the immigration rules, but only because, outside the EU, control of immigration is proving very much harder – families come rather than individuals.
Animal welfare? More than two years on, the much-trumpeted action plan for animal welfare is floundering, with little enacted. Meanwhile, it is the EU that has consistently taken animal welfare seriously.
Faster access to medicines? The claim is risible. If this is a reference to strengthening the early access to medicines scheme – a good measure – note that it was launched in 2014 when we were inside the EU. Faster access to medicines is not a Brexit “freedom”.
As von der Leyen says, the direction of travel is away from this barren Brexit – thus everything from Britain re-entering the Horizon Europe research programme to a fifth postponement of inspecting food and plant imports from the EU. The logic of geography, economics and the availability of only one-sided trade deals, especially with the US and China, is inexorable. The EU will remain Britain’s largest trading partner: it sets the rules and we either abide by them or accept reduced trade with all the consequences. A former top Treasury official tells me that his advice to Rachel Reeves, a growth-focused would-be chancellor, would be unambiguous: rejoin the single market and the customs union. In his scathingly brilliant book How They Broke Britain, the LBC presenter James O’Brien describes how the rightwing, Europhobic ecosystem of media, thinktanks and Tory politicians that has developed over the past 40 years prohibits an honest public conversation. Political leadership cowers in its ever-threatening shadow, so that to keep it calm Sunak has to make claims about Brexit “freedoms” that he must know are specious, while Keir Starmer, no less aware of the economic and geopolitical realities, has to say there is no case to rejoin the single market and customs union. On Europe, as with so many issues – think the case for proper levels of taxation or even delaying lockdown by three weeks – policy is developed and conducted within this rightwing paradigm of hysteria.
Tony Blair left office in 2007 accusing the UK media of hunting “like a feral beast tearing people and reputations apart”. Unless Starmer and team act to reduce its power and capacity for untruth, they can expect new heights of feral **** inhibiting their every act in government – especially on Europe. Winning a general election will represent one advance, but unless Labour changes the ground rules via some combination of media ownership requirements, regulatory standards and strengthening public service broadcasting, the right’s blocking power will remain intense.
Rejoining would mean faster growth in living standards, better security and paradoxically lower immigration
Yet for all that, Labour is promising measures that if backed by an electoral mandate would accelerate the step-by-step return process begun by Sunak. Only last Friday, the shadow foreign secretary, David Lammy, said that a defence and security pact with the EU was a priority. Starmer has talked of improving vital trading relationships – there will be no divergence on key standards – and aims for a veterinary agreement and mutual recognition of professional qualifications. There is potentially more: collaboration on energy security, integrating Britain and the EU’s carbon trading arrangements and even joining the Pan-Euro-Mediterranean (PEM) convention as a halfway house to customs union and single market membership. A renegotiated trade and cooperation agreement in 2026 could imply a much more fully fledged EU-UK partnership. All this is likely, even certain, with a Labour victory.
But rejoining? Pro-EU sentiment is certainly hardening. The European movement is the largest it has ever been. In Greater London, there is strong support, especially among the young. Labour party members are overwhelmingly in favour. Rejoining would mean faster growth in living standards, better security and paradoxically lower immigration – a story that works well in both “red wall” seats and urban Britain. It would divide the right into Faragists and realists – thus marginalising it.
A pragmatic Labour party would become the natural party of government. Britain won’t rejoin in the next parliament, but if the EU can hold together and prosper, rejoining must be a good bet in the parliament after that. Building Europe was never going to be easy. In 2040, we may look back and see Brexit as part of the process. Neither Britain, nor any member state, would want to repeat it.
Yeah coz it's all about London isn't it ? The harsh facts of life in the UK are that what people living in London or the South East want or would like has absolutely sod all to do with the rest. I have no doubt that the EU was a great benefit to the South in general but here in the wastelands of North of Oxford all we have is unemployment or slave employment at best, an epidemic of homelessness, hopelessness and inequity and the great indifference of those for whom the luvverlie Europhile dream must be returned at any cost.
I think that sort of argument is the reason behind the referendum result. Many people were confused about what responsibilities they should place at the door of the EU. Completely forgetting that we were, and still are an independent country. The UK government runs our country, not the EU. Leaving the EU has had an adverse effect on our economy. This affects everyone. Although some areas have been hit harder than others. We cant blame the EU, for our taxes, the NHS, energy prices, inflation, interest rates, the fact that Brits can no longer retire to, or work in Europe, the fact that we cant seem to control our borders, the Irish border, homelessness, etc, etc, etc.
You may not think that we were governed by the faceless bureaucracy of Brussels but that was not the case.
Whether you want to admit it or not unelected foreigners had a massive say in how our country was run, maybe indirectly but the E.U held sway.
I don't blame the EU for our lack of border control, homelessness, the economy, etc. I blame the elected Government and that's the great thing about it. They can be changed at the next election.
However, I can't do jack about Ursula and her sycophants. Thankfully now, I don't have to.
The fact that mining, steel and shipbuilding all died out in the UK and yet was still employing thousands in EU countries was nothing to do with them.
Deals done in the corridors of Brussels not Westminster or Whitehall saw millions of (tonnes stupid word) tons of profitably mineable coal consigned to stay forever underground.
Similar deals also accounted for our steel industry whilst those in Germany and Poland thrived, strange that if you think about it.
Ok, I will concede that shipbuilding was in decline by the time we entered in 73 but it was certainly hastened at the benefit of Croatia, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Italy, Malta, The Netherlands, Poland, Portugal, Romania and Spain (Source EU shipbuilding countries)
When I worked I saw no discernible benefit from our membership although a raft of totally needless H&S legislation cost business and industry a small fortune to comply to standards that were inferior to the then current British Standards that they superceeded.
Since I stopped working to care for my wife, I have noticed absolutely no difference between my standard of living pre and post Brexit. So I can only deduce that for millions of people like me EU membership had no benefit whatsoever.
Comments
I often post articles that I think will be debated.
At other times I will post a number of articles that support opposing views.
I think the Penny Mordaunt article has an extreme headline.
I would also agree 100% with you, and @Essexphil, on the "SNP humiliation" article, where the content didnt back up the title in any shape or form.
I do think that this article is different, and poses some very relevant questions of the SNP, and the FOI Act.
For instance if their legal advice really shows that it would take 20 years to re-join the EU, then they should share this knowledge with the general public.
They should be open and honest.
Although if this were the case, I am certain that this would severely affect their chances of getting a majority in a future referendum.
If it took an additional 5 years to get a referendum, it would make independence almost irrelevant to a section of pro EU voters.
The FOI Act was surely intended to inform the general public, not to allow important information to be withheld.
Some critics have argued the comparison with Montenegro shows that a separate Scotland would also require up to 19 years from application to accession.
However, Mr Reid's privacy battle was not done yet; he went back to the SIO to ask for the redactions to be removed and the final ruling on his appeal has yet to be published.
In one email, he states: "Having worked in FOI for a number of years I have to say this is by far the worst handling of a case I have ever come across and I am sure that this will be reflected in the Commissioner's report on the matter. Indeed I am convinced there has been a concerted effort on your behalf to ensure this information never sees the light of day."
The saga has been covered by the The Populist's Playbook website, run by unionist blogger Bingo Demagogue.
He told the Scottish Express: "After Brexit the SNP commissioned a civil service taxpayer funded feasibility study into if, when and how an independent Scotland could join the EU.
"Under FOI first they denied it existed, then they delayed releasing any of it, then when they released it they redacted all the timelines so we still don't know what it said - however a footnote left in the document suggests it thinks we would be like Montenegro (who don't have their own currency and will be stuck outside the EU two decades after gaining independence)."
On Twitter, Mr Reid is still trying after three years to get answers from various SNP politicians about the Scottish Government's advice.
Earlier this week, former MSP Christian Allard declared that Scotland would go "straight into the EU, just like that! From day one we can be in the single market, just like Northern Ireland is."
https://www.scottishdailyexpress.co.uk/news/politics/snps-secret-legal-advice-joining-27189532
https://www.msn.com/en-gb/news/uknews/david-cameron-sparks-fury-from-tories-amid-fears-he-will-reverse-brexit-independence-after-vowing-closer-eu-relationship/ar-AA1kvjm6?ocid=msedgntp&cvid=fb3cd5f274ef440fb68700affac2d8a8&ei=59
https://www.msn.com/en-gb/news/uknews/tory-mps-furious-as-david-cameron-pushes-for-closer-ties-between-britain-and-eu/ar-AA1kvJqc?ocid=msedgntp&cvid=fb3cd5f274ef440fb68700affac2d8a8&ei=32
https://www.msn.com/en-gb/news/uknews/uk-s-flagship-post-brexit-trade-deal-worth-even-less-than-previously-thought-obr-says/ar-AA1kvSp6?ocid=msedgntp&cvid=12641d12ad05432190598e5b26b96afa&ei=56
https://www.msn.com/en-gb/news/world/labour-voters-want-closer-relationship-with-eu-says-polling-expert-john-curtice/ar-AA1kPn2G?ocid=msedgntp&cvid=7591327ed027403da68e68143ab90f5d&ei=37
https://www.msn.com/en-gb/news/uknews/brexit-backer-james-dyson-loses-libel-lawsuit-against-uk-newspaper/ar-AA1kPZOD?ocid=msedgntp&cvid=a4452bcda80844bdbf076031464e05bd&ei=72
https://www.msn.com/en-gb/news/uknews/brexit-betrayal-fears-after-david-lammy-boasts-eu-will-be-labour-s-number-one-priority/ar-AA1kPPWq?ocid=msedgntp&cvid=d5a620007ff04b24ac05fb012ed24379&ei=42
https://uk.yahoo.com/news/no-10-daren-t-admit-073007597.html
Also if Yahoo news reports it it must be true.
The substance behind No 10’s inevitable refutation was so threadbare that it bordered on the comic. But then there is no better defence to hand. The prime minister, intoned his spokesman, did not think Brexit was in danger, trying to reinforce the point by declaring: “It’s through our Brexit freedoms that we are, right now, considering how to further strengthen our migration system. It is through our Brexit freedoms we are ensuring patients in the UK can get access to medicines faster, that there is improved animal welfare. That is very much what we are focused on.”
Is that it? Apart from the fact the claims are at best half-truths, at worst palpable falsehoods, as a muster of Brexit “freedoms” they fall devastatingly short of the promises made during the referendum campaign. Recall the economic and trade boom, a reinvigorated NHS, cheap food, controlled immigration and a reborn “global” Britain strutting the world. It’s all ashes – and had today’s realities been known in 2016, we would still be EU members.
https://uk.news.yahoo.com/no-10-daren-t-admit-073007597.html
Sun, 3 December 2023 at 7:30 am GMT·6-min read
• Will Hutton is an Observer columnist
https://uk.news.yahoo.com/no-10-daren-t-admit-073007597.html
Strengthening our migration system? Freedom of movement in the EU certainly meant that EU nationals could work here freely, as the British could reciprocally work in the EU, but they tended to be young and single. The Poles, Czechs and Romanians kept their home ties warm by going back frequently as it was so geographically easy, and consequently tended not to bring dependants with them. When they had achieved what they wanted, they returned home where per capita incomes were fast catching up with Britain’s. Now immigrants come from other continents to where frequent return is impractical, and so are forced to settle here more permanently, bringing their families with them. Nor are there reciprocal rights for Brits to work in their countries. And because their homelands tend to be poorer, they are less likely to return. Yes, we are considering strengthening the immigration rules, but only because, outside the EU, control of immigration is proving very much harder – families come rather than individuals.
Animal welfare? More than two years on, the much-trumpeted action plan for animal welfare is floundering, with little enacted. Meanwhile, it is the EU that has consistently taken animal welfare seriously.
Faster access to medicines? The claim is risible. If this is a reference to strengthening the early access to medicines scheme – a good measure – note that it was launched in 2014 when we were inside the EU. Faster access to medicines is not a Brexit “freedom”.
As von der Leyen says, the direction of travel is away from this barren Brexit – thus everything from Britain re-entering the Horizon Europe research programme to a fifth postponement of inspecting food and plant imports from the EU. The logic of geography, economics and the availability of only one-sided trade deals, especially with the US and China, is inexorable. The EU will remain Britain’s largest trading partner: it sets the rules and we either abide by them or accept reduced trade with all the consequences. A former top Treasury official tells me that his advice to Rachel Reeves, a growth-focused would-be chancellor, would be unambiguous: rejoin the single market and the customs union. In his scathingly brilliant book How They Broke Britain, the LBC presenter James O’Brien describes how the rightwing, Europhobic ecosystem of media, thinktanks and Tory politicians that has developed over the past 40 years prohibits an honest public conversation. Political leadership cowers in its ever-threatening shadow, so that to keep it calm Sunak has to make claims about Brexit “freedoms” that he must know are specious, while Keir Starmer, no less aware of the economic and geopolitical realities, has to say there is no case to rejoin the single market and customs union. On Europe, as with so many issues – think the case for proper levels of taxation or even delaying lockdown by three weeks – policy is developed and conducted within this rightwing paradigm of hysteria.
Tony Blair left office in 2007 accusing the UK media of hunting “like a feral beast tearing people and reputations apart”. Unless Starmer and team act to reduce its power and capacity for untruth, they can expect new heights of feral **** inhibiting their every act in government – especially on Europe. Winning a general election will represent one advance, but unless Labour changes the ground rules via some combination of media ownership requirements, regulatory standards and strengthening public service broadcasting, the right’s blocking power will remain intense.
Rejoining would mean faster growth in living standards, better security and paradoxically lower immigration
Yet for all that, Labour is promising measures that if backed by an electoral mandate would accelerate the step-by-step return process begun by Sunak. Only last Friday, the shadow foreign secretary, David Lammy, said that a defence and security pact with the EU was a priority. Starmer has talked of improving vital trading relationships – there will be no divergence on key standards – and aims for a veterinary agreement and mutual recognition of professional qualifications. There is potentially more: collaboration on energy security, integrating Britain and the EU’s carbon trading arrangements and even joining the Pan-Euro-Mediterranean (PEM) convention as a halfway house to customs union and single market membership. A renegotiated trade and cooperation agreement in 2026 could imply a much more fully fledged EU-UK partnership. All this is likely, even certain, with a Labour victory.
But rejoining? Pro-EU sentiment is certainly hardening. The European movement is the largest it has ever been. In Greater London, there is strong support, especially among the young. Labour party members are overwhelmingly in favour. Rejoining would mean faster growth in living standards, better security and paradoxically lower immigration – a story that works well in both “red wall” seats and urban Britain. It would divide the right into Faragists and realists – thus marginalising it.
A pragmatic Labour party would become the natural party of government. Britain won’t rejoin in the next parliament, but if the EU can hold together and prosper, rejoining must be a good bet in the parliament after that. Building Europe was never going to be easy. In 2040, we may look back and see Brexit as part of the process. Neither Britain, nor any member state, would want to repeat it.
https://uk.news.yahoo.com/no-10-daren-t-admit-073007597.html
Many people were confused about what responsibilities they should place at the door of the EU.
Completely forgetting that we were, and still are an independent country.
The UK government runs our country, not the EU.
Leaving the EU has had an adverse effect on our economy.
This affects everyone.
Although some areas have been hit harder than others.
We cant blame the EU, for our taxes, the NHS, energy prices, inflation, interest rates, the fact that Brits can no longer retire to, or work in Europe, the fact that we cant seem to control our borders, the Irish border, homelessness, etc, etc, etc.
Obviously this didnt happen.
Although there was no logical reason why this would happen.
In many cases the opposite was true.
The British public now has the experience of life inside, and outside the EU.
The fact that there is a growing majority in favour of re-joining, probably says all you need to know.
People should blame the Tories for their current predicament, not the EU.
Has anything got better since we left?
Plenty of things have got worse.
You may not think that we were governed by the faceless bureaucracy of Brussels but that was not the case.
Whether you want to admit it or not unelected foreigners had a massive say in how our country was run, maybe indirectly but the E.U held sway.
I don't blame the EU for our lack of border control, homelessness, the economy, etc. I blame the elected Government and that's the great thing about it. They can be changed at the next election.
However, I can't do jack about Ursula and her sycophants. Thankfully now, I don't have to.
The fact that mining, steel and shipbuilding all died out in the UK and yet was still employing thousands in EU countries was nothing to do with them.
Deals done in the corridors of Brussels not Westminster or Whitehall saw millions of (tonnes stupid word) tons of profitably mineable coal consigned to stay forever underground.
Similar deals also accounted for our steel industry whilst those in Germany and Poland thrived, strange that if you think about it.
Ok, I will concede that shipbuilding was in decline by the time we entered in 73 but it was certainly hastened at the benefit of Croatia, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Italy, Malta, The Netherlands, Poland, Portugal, Romania and Spain (Source EU shipbuilding countries)
When I worked I saw no discernible benefit from our membership although a raft of totally needless H&S legislation cost business and industry a small fortune to comply to standards that were inferior to the then current British Standards that they superceeded.
Since I stopped working to care for my wife, I have noticed absolutely no difference between my standard of living pre and post Brexit. So I can only deduce that for millions of people like me EU membership had no benefit whatsoever.